Done in respect of the manifestation of metaphysical beauty was unparalleled and super ordinate among all poets such as Richard Crash, Henry Vaughan, Abraham Cooley, George Herbert, Andrew Marvel and many more. Done, in fact, gave a breakthrough about the initiation of a new form of poetry-metaphysical poetry. He was natural, unconventional, and persistently believed in the argumentation and cross analysis of his thoughts and emotions through direct languages.
He also concentrated on love and religion through the intellectual, analytical and psychological point of view. His poetry is not only scholastic and witty but also reflective and philosophical. Key Words: Conceit, Elizabethan poetry, Epigram, Metaphysical poetry, Paradox and Ratiocination.
INTRODUCTION
The metaphysical poets have immense power and capability to wonder the reader and cajole inventive perspective through paradoxical images, subtle argument, innovative syntax and imagery from art, philosophy and religion implying an extended metaphor known as conceit.
The term “metaphysical” broadly applied to English and European poets of the seventeenth century was used by Augustan poets John Dryden and Samuel Johnson to reprove those poets for their “unnaturalness”. John Dryden was the first to use the term metaphysical in association with John Done as he “affects the metaphysics. “Goethe, likewise, wrote, “The unnatural, that too is natural” and metaphysical poets are studied for their intricacy and originality.
It will not be irrelevant and absurd to say, “Metaphysics in poetry is the fruit of the Renaissance tree, becoming over-ripe and approaching putrescence” (C. S. Lewis). Scholars 325 described the characteristics of metaphysical poetry from different point of view. They, in fact, lay out the essence of metaphysical poem, as does R. S. Hillier to call, ” Loosely, it has taken such meanings as these–metaphysical poetry as difficult, philosophical, obscure, ethereal, involved, supercilious, ingenious, fantastic and incongruous.
EPIGRAM AND DONNA’S METAPHYSICAL POETRY
Concentration is one of the features of metaphysical otter especially in Donna’s poetry because he introduces the readers to the new realm of argument and the closely interwoven thought, emotion and affection. We can find the communion of two souls of lovers into one existence in “The Ecstasy’ where Done intended to explain the different acts of love and the function of man as worthily performed man. The concept, here, of concentration on mutual but powerful setting of International Journal – http://www. R]Ella. Com love gets strength without digression.
The poet expresses thus: “Our hands were firmly cemented with a fast balm, which thence did spring. ” An extended form of epigram (a short poem or phrase that expresses an idea in clever or amusing way) fructifies the essence of metaphysical poetry where no words or expressions are not wasted and poet’s emotions get the logical solution. The verse forms are small and simple and bring about strong sense through examples from science and religion. For example, John Done used epigram in his poem “Hero and Leander” when he writes thus: “Both robbed of air, we both lie in one ground Both whom one fire had burnt, one water drowned.
Though there is no apparent humor in this poem, there is a contradiction, which indicates limitless inquisition in poet’s heart. There is a question how could two people die by both fire and water? The readers stand before the confusion, which definitely leads to the long-awaited solution.
METAPHYSICAL CONCEITS AND DONNA’S POETRY
The concept of metaphysical conceit is another but most appealing and brilliant aspect of metaphysical poetry and Donna’s poetry gets stages of development through the scientific implications of metaphorical conceit where he showed profusely his analytic genius through the convinced conceit.
Conceit (a clever or sharp expression in writing or speech that involves a comparison between two similar things) is an enticing and essential part of Donna’s poetry that strengthens the basement of argument and allures far-fetched concepts with logical supposition. Dry. Johnson called conceits, “the most heterogeneous ideas yoked by violence together. ” In this sense, Done may well be claimed to be emblematic of metaphysical poetry. The most immediately striking feature of Metaphysical style forged by Done is its use of the conceit” (Mackenzie, 1990:54). Donna’s conceits are instrumental in the sense that they retain the attentiveness of readers and help the emotion pass through different dimensions.
Ben Jackson’s criticism is prominent regarding Donna’s poetry as it is concentrated on the use of metaphysical conceits. He prophesied, “The poetry of Done would perish for lack of being understood” (Reheated, 1966:202). 26 The thought of metaphysical conceit, perhaps, finds its most convinced expression in the words of Gardner: “In a metaphysical poem, the conceits are instruments of definition in an argument or instruments to persuade. The poem has something to say which the conceit explicates or something to urge which the conceit helps to forward” (1985:21). In terms of conceits, John Done remained invincible and unparalleled as his conceits got refinement through the experiential point of view and gave references from every discipline of knowledge including science, religion and medicine.
Done cannot be held illogical and absurd in defining love through conceits because he addressed the concept through the reality of love in a concrete and similarly appalling way with the aid of the conceit of the compass. The most striking and influential instance of conceit is found in Donna’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” “in which the souls of the two lovers are compared with the points of a compass” (Watts, 1990:9). The poet evokes hush: “If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two, Thy soul the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if theorem do.
The poet, however, manifests his beloved through the geometrical explanation as it is most vivid and persuading like one part of compass moves around and the other part revolves in central point and the two souls of lovers get freedom to roam in the infinite vista of love and emotion. Donna’s songs and sonnets as “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”, The Flea” and Love’s Alchemy’ possess strong position in the possible extremely distinctive aspect of the love poetry of Done. He showed his outstanding poetic genius and capability to retain and evoke the essentially multifarious aspects and quality of manly love- love between men and women.
The readers of his poetry especially love poetry “must share, in some degree, his own capacity for associating widely diverse themes and feelings” (Bennett, 1964:14). Done exhibited a variety of conceits through the numerous moods and was capable of portraying and analyzing “a wider range of emotion than any other English poet except Shakespeare” (Bennett, MOM 3). Furthermore, he added, “Done traveled from one International Journal – http://www. ]Ella. Com type of experience to another” (1964:14). Done cannot be considered as a poet of singular taste as he variegated his options with multiple ones.
